Interview with ETERNAL MESSIAH

!!!BLACKENED THRASH METAL FROM UKRAINE!!!

Welcome to the FILTHY DOGS OF METAL Webzine.

Tell us a few things about ETERNAL MESSIAH (Members, Starting Year etc).
The band started with a fall of the other one. It all began in April of 2021 when our future guitarist and co-founder Olexsii Demishkant (scene name - Headripper), came to audition to the local heavy-metal band called "Призрачный Рай" (or Phantom Paradise in English). Olexsii was successfully accepted as a lead guitarist of the band, but unfortunately, he was destined to never play with this band, not even one rehearsal. Only a few days from audition the leader, co-founder and vocalist of that band, who was the father of our drummer and another co-founder Vasilii Voloshyn (scene name - Soulburner) - Anatoly Voloshyn passed away. After that, Vasily and Olexsii called and decided to create their own band. The first real rehearsal spot was at the drummer's place in his home. That's where the first 3 songs were created, and shortly after that, in October of the same year, the band found its voice and bass player - it was Kyrylo Vieliev (scene name - Deathbringer) via group chat on Telegram and he was really happy about getting to play in our band, essentially he was a really great fit for a band, we really glad that he is our voice . Then we created our first band name - Пробил Час (The Hour Has Struck), but unfortunately for our country our neighbours from Russia started a full scale war, so we decided to completely change the language of our songs (all songs were written in Russian) and also our band name to a better-sounding one - Eternal Messiah. We translated all of our songs to Ukrainian, and despite the war we continued to work on our material and played our first gig on June 10th, 2023.

You have recently released your single ''Минає Час''. What is the feedback from your audience as well as from the press?
Well, I think we did pretty good for an underground band. For now, our second single "Минає Час" is the most listened song on our YouTube channel (around 430 listens), however our first single called "Голокост" or Holocaust in English have more listens that the second one on Spotify. I don't know about the press, but we received a reaction to our video from one pretty big (22k subs) YouTube channel, given the fact that we never used ads I think that's a pretty good result for us. We also did a fun video for it that was made of recordings of our live shows and some parts from our life as well. This song has more of a classic speed metal vibes, we dedicate this song to all metalheads and to the metal lifestyle in general, the lyrics for this song was written by Andrey Demishkant (father of Olexsii) and translated in Ukranian language.

Label or DIY and why?
It's funny because we had a proposition to get on a so-called "underground label", but in fact it was just a dude who tried to scam us, so for now it's DIY, but we would absolutely love to be on a real label; it would help us a lot.

Is there any funny or weird story from the recordings or from your live shows that you would like to share with us?
Our recording process started as a complete nightmare. While recording songs, the band often encountered unforeseen situations: strings broke, the saddle fell out, the lights went out (because of attacks by previously mentioned neighbours), files were not transferred, and the recorded music began to clip. We basically learned how to record in the process. The war took a lot of time to develop our music, and we could not get together often due to a lack of free time. As for live performances, there were a lot of fun moments that happen on most metal shows - someone got hit and injured in the pit, the crowd almost destroyed the P.A. system and other fun stuff! But there were also a bad moment as well, for example - our gig in Ternopil (In a club called "Na POSTI") was cancelled because of some crazy sicko that sprayed pepper spray during the performance of the other band Squat Apart. After their performance, we were supposed to go on stage, but everyone had to go outside and call the police, 'cause we and the crowd literally couldn't breathe, and then the concert was over.

Do you prefer Vinyl, Tape, CD or Digital Format and why is that?
For us, any physical form of music is great, but we prefer cassettes and CDs for 2 main reasons - it's the cheapest way to get your music in physical form, and as you know, our country is in a state of war and that affects the economy as well, which means a lot of people wouldn't give a lot of money for entertainment. The second reason - it's just authentic and we love it, it's like a blast from the 80's, which is really great!

Your music style is Black/Thrash Metal. Which are your main influences (Favourite Artists / Bands etc.)
In our band, we listen to very different stuff, from jazz and blues to brutal death metal and so on. As for the bands that influenced us, there are of course a lot of bands from the American Thrash scene (obviously a Big 4 and bands like Morbid Saint, Demolition Hammer, Dark Angel, Nuclear Assault, etc.), but also a big part of our music is influenced by a Teutonic Thrash Metal bands like Sodom (which is one of the most favorite band for all of the band members), Kreator, Destruction, Tankard, Deathrow, Darkness, Living Death, Vendetta and so on. Obviously, as a blackened thrash metal band we also love old-school black metal bands from the 80s and 90s. From the 1-st wave it's obviously Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, etc., and for the 2-nd wave it's all Norwegian Black Metal classics, but also bands like Enslaved, Windir, Carpathian Forest and others. On our latest works, which the world will hear hopefully soon, we took a lot of inspiration from technical thrash metal bands - Coroner, Vektor (one of the most favorite modern band of our guitarist), Mekong Delta, Watchtower, Target and a lot more. Basically, all within the spectrum of old-school metal is our jam (including new bands that play in old-school style). 

Which things do you think a band should sacrifice in order to succeed? Have you ever sacrificed anything in your life for a better future for your band?
Firstly, people in a band should sacrifice most of their free time to the band; dedication goes a long way, and without it - any band will never succeed. The second is, of course, money, because being a musician is an expensive hobby, and anyone should be ready to spend a lot on it. Being a musician could also be really stressful, so people who start a band should be ready for it, because almost every time nothing goes 100% as planned. As for our sacrifices, I think we sacrificed everything that was mentioned before, and we're willing to sacrifice even more.

Describe your ideal live show as a performance band. Have you already experienced that?
For us, any performance is considered ideal when the audience is happy and interested in our music. It’s especially nice to see the audience growing, as it was at our concerts in Kyiv at Volume Club and in Dnipro at Machno Pub. We even have a really dedicated fan that often rides from town to town just to see our show, and that's really great and motivates us to do as many concerts as we possibly could. As long as we have fans like that - everything is great. 

What attributes do you think that a new Thrash Metal Band should have in order to gain identity and be unique?
We think each band is already unique. When you write music, you don't think about making it sound like something. You get inspired and write music on a certain topic, feeling its sincere sound. For example, military topics: many groups write about them in their own way. We live in wartime and describe it in our songs as we see it ourselves. As a result, individual and unique music is born. Our only tip to other bands is to listen to as much music as you can - not only just metal but other genres as well, 'cause the more you listen - the more you know, the more you analyse different styles, tips, structures, etc., and that could really help with originality.

Do you believe that Digital Platforms help the new Thrash Metal Bands? Which, do you think, is the ideal way for a band to promote its work?
Of course! That's the way you found us, right? It's a really great tool that helps a lot. Basically, you connected with a whole world, and someone who would never find out about our existence can now find us, listen to our music, and hopefully like it. In the 80s and 90s, even having 1000 people know about your band was a great achievement, but now literally thousands of people can find and listen to your music in seconds, so it's definitely a great thing. Of course, it has downsides, but for us, there's much more benefit than harm. As for the second part of this question - we think that the best way is to combine digital ways of promotion with concerts. That's the place where musicians can meet a lot of different people and form a useful connection with someone who might really help their development and popularity.

Do you see any differences between the Ukrainian Metal Market & the EU Metal Market (Labels, Bands, Fans etc)?
Absolutely. In general, things here are a lot worse than in most of Europe. The main reason is the culture - it's a lot less developed here than in Europe, a lot of people still think that metal is just noise and not music at all. Some people also dislike the typical looks of metalheads in the early 2000s. You could be easily beaten just because you wear a metal band t-shirt and have long hair. Things got a lot better from then, but still, we have a long road to get to the level of the rest of Europe. As for stores - we have some popular internet stores of metal merch, some of them connected to Europe - that's the place where we can find the rare stuff that we are interested in (like patches, CD's, cassettes, etc.). Labels here, for the most part, are underground and release underground music most of the time. They are run by a few people or even consist of 1 member (for example, Bathoryhead is a member of a Kyiv Thrash Metal band called Spit Bile; he's doing cassette copies for a lot of thrash metal bands in Ukraine). We also know about Surrogate Records; our friends from the local scene - Squat Apart, signed on that label. Overall, Europe has a lot more bands, clubs, and labels - essentially everything.

Tell us a few things about the New Underground Metal Scene in Ukraine (Bands, Fanzines, Webzines, Metal Clubs etc.)
We mentioned some bands from the local scene previously; in our city, the underground scene consists mostly of punk; even our friends from Squat Apart also mix a lot of punk in their sound. Talking about the local thrash scene for now, it's only us in our city. Earlier, we had another thrash band called "Acid Blaze", but unfortunately, it has disbanded since war started. As in all of Ukraine, we have a few new great thrash bands. Our big friends Karabiner, whom we've met at our first gig in Kyiv at Volume Club, are great guys who play really fast and aggressive thrash, have great sound and overall it's a great band; they even collabed with Xonor from Switzerland. There are also a lot of thrash bands that started in late 2000's - early 2010's and continue to play to this day - Reabiliatator, Spit Bile, Zombie Attack (named after Tankard debut album), Warwar, Січгарт and a lot more. As of now, there has started a big movement of new thrash metal bands - it consists of bands such as previously mentioned Karabiner, HorilkA, Xenothrone, Oriax, Nuclear Conflict (moved to Lithuania), and bands that we probably don't know about.

Do you know anything about the Hellenic Metal Scene?
Well, we are not sure about the whole scene, but we know some great bands from there, but it's probably the most famous ones. We are a big fans of Suicidal Angels and Bio-Cancer, also we like some black metal bands such as Rotting Christ and Varathron

In the last 4 years, worldwide, we have faced many dark, strange & new situations in our everyday lives (covid, lockdown, etc.). Did all of this affect you positively or negatively?
It's hard to say; it definitely helped us with topics to write about, but overall, we wish it would never have happened. COVID times were hard, but nowhere near as hard as they are now in a state of war. Because of it, people died a lot more than because of COVID, and the death count is increasing every day. Fortunately, we are still alive and can write music, so we are glad that we can still do what we love the most.

What are your future plans?
Well, we're planning to release our debut album and make a really big gig to celebrate it. After that, we will continue to make gigs and new music, develop as a band, and grow as much as we can, not only as musicians but as people as well. Hopefully, we will survive these tough times and give concerts not only in our country but in Europe as well. At least it's a big dream of ours, only time will tell how soon it will happen!

Thank you very much for your time & keep up the good work! The closure is yours.
Thank you for this opportunity! To all metalheads all over the world, we wish you the ultimate passion. Stay true to everything that you love and never stop; if we didn't stop in these circumstances, then you definitely shouldn't either! Stay metal; thrash till death!

By Steve the Filthy Dog.

ETERNAL MESSIAH CONTACT:

https://www.facebook.com/eternalmessiahthrash

https://www.instagram.com/eternal_messiah_band/

https://eternalmessiah.bandcamp.com/

https://www.deezer.com/en/artist/259373872

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0iVOcLcCR6WbNUy0FCDQ8z